The Future is Ours
by HecateA
Summary: Rachel sees the problems in seeing the future, Octavian sees the solution, they both see red. Oneshot. 14/16.


**So at first this was a case study of the potential that Octavian and Rachel had of acting as foils for each other, then it became a comparisson between the two and the possible similarities with their tempers, and here you have this story that I hope you enjoy.**

**Disclaimer: I don't own the PJO or HoO universe.**

* * *

**The Future is Ours**

* * *

Octavian was walking out of the senate a little later than he usually did -having had to grab a hold of Frank and Reyna before they all left. He was grabbed by the toga and smashed against the wall.

"You profoundly disgust me," someone spat at him.

Once the world came back into focus, he saw that that someone was a particularly pissed off redhead. Her jeans were falling apart, held by safety pins and plastered with glitter glue, paint and what looked like a loney piece of paper maché. She wore a t-shirt announcing to the world that two in three illiterate adults were women, and her single earring looked like a beatle caught in a chunk of amber. He'd never really paid attention to the Oracle of Delphi before, had always assumed that she was a fraud and that if there really was an active oracle in the world, she'd be at the service of Rome. But she was startingly bright-eyed and fiery haired and unique and delicately built and overrall beautiful. She was also really mad.

"How dare you?" Rachel Elizabeth Dare said.

"What?" he said, panicky.

"Don't play innocent with me," she spat right back at him. "Inside the senate? You _so _used that boy's future to threaten him into siding with you during the vote! Frank didn't catch it, and nor did Reyna thank gods for you- but I saw it. You can't _do _that you imbecile. The future is not your special super power, yours to benefit from. Heck, the future isn't even _yours." _

"_Actually," _Octavian said, "As augur of Rome…"

"You're just a vessel. Just a third man making sure that the highlights get to the people who need guidance. That's what oracles and augurs and whatever kind of soothsayer you think you are do. Do you have any _idea _how hard the future is on people like me? How hard it is to know what to say, to know what to keep to yourself, to know when to look, when to keep your eyes shut, to never know when you're about to lose it and pass out because suddenly somebody needs to know how painfully they're going to die? It's enough to make you bitter old and mean and crazy."

And at that moment Octavian knew that she wasn't a fraud. She was a real prophetess. She saw things -terible things- and struggled with the weight of them, of these crosses that she was meant to bear.

"I know," Octavian said. "I know. Why do you think I do things like that? Don't you think I'm bitter, old and mean and crazy?"

Rachel let go of him and took a step back. He could still see the freckles on her face just as sharply. He could count them if he'd like.

She cocked her head.

"Interesting preposition," she said. "But I think you're a dick."

"I think you're a dick," Octavian said. "Coming over here and telling _me _about how hard seeing the future is when you're the one who decided to host the oracle, whereas I was _born _with the sight and appointed augur as soon as I could."

Rachel cocked her head the other way. At first Octavian had thought that her nails were painted, but nope. A few of them had random splotches of paint on them, that was all. Clay and glitter glue were rimming them.

"That's why you tried so hard to find the Sybilline books," she said. "Before the Seven proved that they were destroyed."

"Because if there was a book, why would they keep me around to gut stuffed animals and interpretate cotton?" Octavian said. He readjusted his toga. "I know I'm using the future to my advantage, but it forced itself on me. It has no ethic right on me now."

"Oh, everything has to be ethic," Rachel protested. The feistiness was back.

"Are you really going to argue with me about this?" Octavian asked.

"It's not an argument, it's a discussion you moron."

"Says the one who assaulted me ten seconds ago."

"Says the one who acknowledges he's being a jerk but says he won't stop."

"Could we argument or discuss somewhere else?" Octavian said. "Over coffee perhaps?"

"I thought you'd never ask." Rachel said.

"But clearly you knew."

"Well of course I knew, I'm the oracle aren't I?" Rachel said. "Come. You better hope they're not out of chai, because then I might be even madder with you."


End file.
